Wells

Cardinal Midstream LLC has brought a third cryogenic gas processing plant online in the Arkoma Woodford Shale, and it now has 220 MMcf/d of operated cryogenic processing capacity in the Oklahoma play. The new Tupelo Plant in Coal County, OK, is capable of processing 120 MMcf/d. Cardinal’s Coalgate Plant, an 80 MMcf/d facility, is adjacent to Tupelo, and the Atoka Plant in Atoka County, has a capacity of 20 MMcf/d. Cardinal Midstream President R. Mack Lawrence said the company was expanding its gathering system and “evaluating further processing capacity expansions given the level of drilling activity on dedicated acreage and the quality and production volume we’re seeing from the rich gas wells in the play.”

With most new oil/gas exploration and production (E&P) moving to the more populated eastern slope of the Colorado Rockies from its traditional rural west-central focus, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) embarked last month on a three-month public service advertising campaign as part of a broader community outreach on the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking). So far the campaign is raising more interest than anticipated, according to COGA, and mostly because anti-fracking groups are crying foul.

A judge in New York State has ruled that an ordinance and a zoning requirement enacted last year by the town of Dryden, NY, essentially banning all Marcellus Shale oil and gas activities in the municipality, are not preempted by state law and can remain in effect.

Officials from one of two Colorado cities to halt hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within its boundaries, Commerce City, heard from a panel of experts that a permanent ban against the oil/gas industry drilling technology is not possible, and besides, the state already closely regulates the practice.

Ask and you shall receive.

A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider its decision to throw out a ban on oil and natural gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed a landmark Marcellus Shale regulatory reform bill — also known as the Natural Gas Horizontal Wells Control Act — into law on Thursday.

Natural gas produced from Marcellus Shale wells owned by Shell Upstream America and Ultra Petroleum Corp. has begun flowing through a UGI Central Penn Gas Inc. supply pipeline that feeds some 15,000 customers in Tioga, Bradford and Potter counties in Pennsylvania, according to the UGI Utilities Inc. subsidiary.

The federal government has conditionally approved Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc.’s revised exploration plan proposing to drill up to six exploration wells in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea beginning in the 2012 drilling season.